Being new, big and shiny, Ocean Palace has a few obvious advantages over its competitors: a ballroom-size dining room with 100 tables, a pond in front of the restaurant garnished with lily pads, and substantial hype that keeps people waiting every Sunday morning for a table -- for good reason. Ocean Palace serves the largest variety of dim sum in Houston. Where the average Chinese restaurant serves two kinds of rice porridge, Ocean Palace serves twice as many. Where all dim sum restaurants serve shrimp dumplings in a transparent, gauzelike wrapper, Ocean Palace also dishes out the hard-to-find bean leaf with shrimp ball. Keep your eyes peeled for the endless parade of carts loaded with dishes and steam containers for different kinds of lotus-leaf-wrapped sticky rice; steaming pork sui mai; duck feet in white vinegar; tiny briny clams in black bean sauce; shrimp-stuffed vegetables; jellyfish cold cuts; and baos (buns) filled with barbecued pork, or chicken, or sweet bean paste. And if you have room for dessert, Ocean Palace offers the greatest variety, with its carts full of pastries, custards and jellies. Best of all, you don't have to wait for the weekend to sample all these treats -- Ocean Palace serves dim sum Monday through Friday until 2:30 p.m., and until 3 p.m. on the weekends.